


I wish for emptiness and sudden light

by MiaCooper



Category: Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Canon Extrapolation, Decision Points, F/M, Fenris Rangers, Friends and Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, I torpedoed Proxima Station again sorry folks, Mild Smut, Missed Chances, Post-Series, Pre-Series, Regret, Starfleet, making beta canon my bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:28:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22860244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaCooper/pseuds/MiaCooper
Summary: “What are you, Jean-Luc? Are you ever putting on the pips again, or are you planning to wander about the galaxy digging up relics and whistling for Starfleet every time you get yourself into a jam?”
Relationships: Beverly Crusher/Jean-Luc Picard, Chakotay/Kathryn Janeway, Chakotay/Seven of Nine, Kathryn Janeway/Jean-Luc Picard
Comments: 45
Kudos: 77





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> References to: TNG episodes 1x09 _The Battle_ , 2x13 _Time Squared_ and 3x26 _The Best of Both Worlds_ ; VOY episodes 6x10 _Pathfinder_ , 6x26 _Unimatrix Zero_ and 7x25 _Endgame_ ; PIC episodes up to 1x05 _Stardust City Rag_ ; _Nemesis_ ; and _Children of Mars_. I’ve used bits and pieces of Jeri Taylor’s _Mosaic_ and Christopher L Bennett’s _The Buried Age_ , but only the bits I liked. Forget about the post-series books altogether.

* * *

_Wanderer: singing._   
_The sky is my home._   
_I throw roses into it_   
_to color it red._

  
_**USS Mary Kingsley, Somewhere in the Beta quadrant – 2359** _

Kathryn moves too close to the quantum field with her tricorder, and light snaps and sizzles and raises the tiny hairs on her arms. A medic on the away team leaps to her aid. Even so, Jean-Luc has to force himself to step back while the medic scans her and pronounces her unharmed.

He is angry with her out of all proportion for what they’re supposed to be to one another.

After the away mission she pilots the shuttle expertly into the bay, curls her half-smile at him and invites him to her quarters. She lights candles for the table and they eat Andorian _redbat_ and drink a rather inferior chablis. He’s quiet, but so is she; her infrequent comments are concerned with quantum entanglement and subatomic containment.

She clears the plates away and leans a hip against his chair, the slight weight of her body making his fingers itch to shape its curves and planes. He urges her down to straddle his lap and kisses her, slowly and comprehensively.

They move to the bed and start to make love, but his restraint is more pronounced than usual and she stops the smooth cant and roll of her hips to sit up, bracing her hands on his chest. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

He tells her that she shouldn’t take such risks with her safety, that she is too reckless, and Kathryn laughs and rolls to her back, pulling him over her. 

“My protector,” she coos.

There’s something dark and sour beneath her playful tone, but the arch of her eyebrow weakens his knees and puts a knot in his belly, so he constrains himself to a reproachful nip to her chin and the harsh, quickening rock of his pelvis. She comes quickly, shuddering, all soft gasps and bitten-back moans.

He waits for her to wrestle back the dominant position the way she likes to after her first climax. A smooth curtain of hair slides over her narrow shoulder as she tightens her thighs around him. He grasps her hips, trying to enter her again, but she holds herself away and he twitches as she trails her fingertips across his stomach.

It makes her smile. “Surely the great Jean-Luc Picard isn’t ticklish.”

“No.”

Kathryn squirms downward and presses her lips to the silky skin below his ribcage. “Really,” she teases at his flinch.

“It’s just that…” he hesitates, “I’m not as fit or as young as the lovers you’re likely used to.”

“You’re hardly a fossil.”

“I’m thirty years your senior, Kathryn.”

Her amusement fades. She props her chin on folded hands atop his chest and glares at him.

“Do you really think I’m that superficial?”

“No, of course not.”

“Because you’re the one who keeps bringing up the difference in our ages. I don’t care. Understand?”

Irritation starts to soften the erection trapped between them, and Jean-Luc finds himself wanting to retaliate. “Sometimes the difference in our ages is particularly evident.”

Hurt deepens the blue of her eyes. “Why are you so angry with me?”

“Not angry. Concerned. You were reckless on the mission today.”

“I can take care of myself, _Captain_.” The slight emphasis she places on his former rank stings, as she means it to.

“I’m not your captain,” he smarts. “If I were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in bed, Lieutenant.”

She flinches at the rebuke, and Picard envelopes her hand in his: an apology.

“What are you then, Jean-Luc?” Kathryn pulls away and fixes him with a cool stare. “Are you ever putting on the pips again, or are you planning to wander about the galaxy digging up relics and whistling for Starfleet every time you get yourself into a jam?”

He recoils, but she doesn’t wait for him to answer anyway. Naked, she storms into the bathroom and shuts the door, leaving him frustrated and not a little ashamed of himself. When it becomes clear that she isn’t coming out again, he pulls on his clothes and beams back to the research ship.

Kathryn is still stiff and scrupulously formal in the briefing room the following morning, so much so that Captain Karapleedeez notices.

“What have you done to my science officer?” she asks Picard when he accepts her invitation to tea in her ready room, and laughs at the discomfort he fails to hide. “Did you think I was unaware that the two of you have become close?”

“I hope you don’t disapprove.”

“That would hardly be my prerogative. Nevertheless, I will further overstep my bounds by cautioning you that I’m quite fond of Lieutenant Janeway and I don’t wish to see her hurt.” Karapleedeez sips Earl Grey and watches him. “Particularly at such a vulnerable time, given her recent ordeals.”

“I have no intention of hurting her,” Picard responds, unwilling to admit he isn’t wholly sure what Karapleedeez is talking about.

He resolves to ask Kathryn about it – after he has apologised to her, of course – but she beats him to that, turning up on the research ship after the day’s work is done. She’s in civilian clothing and her hair is loose, but there’s no hiding the Starfleet posture she adopts without conscious thought: chin raised, feet shoulder-width apart and hands clasped behind her back. Picard hides a smile as he invites her inside.

After forgiveness and kisses, after dinner and wine, she leans against his shoulder on the couch. He can feel her body slackening, head lolling and breathing soft, but he’s too wound up to let the evening end as it has on other occasions, with an exhausted Kathryn curled up in his arms, or laid out on his bed, only to rouse in the early hours and initiate prolonged and imaginative lovemaking. He shifts, startling her awake.

“You asked if I intend to go back to Starfleet,” he says without preamble. “The truth is, I don’t know. I’ve thought about it a lot, particularly since I met you.”

Kathryn blinks the sleep from her eyes. “What are you afraid of?” she asks. Her voice is rough and coffee-soaked.

Jean-Luc is quiet for a long time. “Captains make decisions all the time,” he says eventually. “I’m afraid I won’t make the right ones. No – I’m afraid I won’t be able to make any decisions at all.”

“Oh,” she says with deep understanding.

“You say that as if you’ve just solved a mystery.”

Kathryn gives him a wry smile. “Not exactly. It’s just that I’m well acquainted with that particular fear.”

Picard thinks about the strangeness of asking advice from a woman three decades and many missions less experienced than he is, then shrugs it away; her ability to surprise him is one of Kathryn Janeway’s many attractive qualities.

“Tell me,” he invites.

She twists her hands in her lap, eyes cast down and unfocused. “I had to make a choice, not so long ago. You know my father was killed on Tau Ceti Prime?”

He has the sense that the words scour her throat as she dredges them up from somewhere deep inside. “Yes,” he encourages, because it’s evident that her father’s death is part of what Karapleedeez was alluding to.

“I could have saved him. Or I could have saved my fiancé. I was there,” she explains, hands twisting and twisting. “I was thrown clear of the shuttle as it sank under the ice, and they were trapped. There was only enough power to transport one of them out, but I refused to believe it … I kept trying to save them both. They told me later that it was impossible, but that I could have saved one of them, if I’d been able to choose.”

When she halts her clipped speech, he takes her hands in his. “A choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

“But one I should have been able to make.” She pulls back, finally meeting his gaze. “Because I couldn’t, they both died. So believe me, Jean-Luc … I understand what you’re afraid of.”

“What would you do if you were back there right now?” he asks her, not to be cruel, but because he needs to know. Because he’s there now, except that his crucible is not the bitter glaciers of Tau Ceti but the fire-lashed bridge of the _Stargazer_.

Kathryn’s eyes are wet, but her voice is steely. “I’d do exactly the same thing I did then. Except this time, I’d do it better.”

*

Their affair has run its natural course by the time the _Mary Kingsley_ is ordered on a new mission. On their last night together in Kathryn’s quarters, Jean-Luc can feel she is already detached, her eyes and mind on untravelled stars.

She stretches out beside him, her fingers tracing pensive patterns on his stomach and chest, and wonders aloud if they’ll ever meet again. There’s no wistfulness in her tone, no sentimentality. He has the sense that it doesn’t matter to her one way or the other.

He finds that he wants it to matter to her. _He_ wants to matter.

“I expect we’ll run into each other again someday, out here among the stars,” he says. “Or maybe we’ll find ourselves serving together.”

Kathryn absorbs his words, then rolls over to face him. “Does that mean you’re coming back?” she asks. “To Starfleet?”

He nods.

“Was it something I said?” she asks him playfully.

“Let’s just say you’ve been instrumental in encouraging me to reconsider my future.”

Her smile is slow and brilliant. “Good,” she says. “I do hate waste.”

She kisses him, and this time when they make love he holds her full attention. It isn’t until days later, after she’s light years out of his reach, that he wonders if she meant that her time with him would have been wasted had he decided not to rejoin Starfleet.

There are far less enticing recruitment techniques, he reflects as he sends off a carefully composed communique to Starfleet Command. And it doesn’t make him any less eager to see her again.


	2. Chapter 2

_Stop: these roads_   
_grow from me._   
_My journey must end_   
_because my destinations_   
_have ended._

  
_**Cochrane Hall, Starfleet Headquarters, San Francisco – 2377** _

He has seen her often over the years, at balls and briefings, at functions and funerals, and each time it seems like she’s wearing yet another pip. Sometimes they greet each other as colleagues and friends; some nights, they leave as lovers. Her hair shortens and lengthens, darkens and reddens; fine lines appear at the corners of her eyes, and the interchangeable dark-haired and uniformed suitors that frequently appear on her arm are gradually replaced by a tall, silver-haired man in a professor’s outdated suit jacket.

Then comes the seven-year span when he doesn’t see her at all, and when one of the funerals he attends is held in her memory: prematurely, as it turns out.

The next time he sees her is at another event in her honour, but this time she is shockingly, vibrantly alive. He catches sight of her across the crowded room, just like a cliché; she is mid-conversation with several Starfleet brass, laughing, and as she turns her eyes lock with his and she smiles at him so tenderly that Beverly, beside him, remarks on it.

“You’ve never mentioned that you and Captain Janeway had _that_ kind of relationship.”

Jean-Luc wants to tell her that it isn’t like that, that his connection with Kathryn is nowhere near as complex or intricate as his feelings for Beverly, but the words won’t come, because Kathryn is weaving her way through the crowd toward them and his heart is beginning to pound. And all he can see as she leans up to press painted lips to his cheek is those same lips rounded in an orgasmic ‘O’, and all he can hear as she fondly utters his name is that husky voice, urging him to blissful, sleepless, memorable depths.

Her eyes tell him she’s remembering it too.

It isn’t long before Beverly excuses herself, citing medical curiosity, and makes her way over to _Voyager_ ’s EMH – a novelty with his portable holo-emitter and his sentience and his illusory glass of champagne – who stands with two of the other exotic individuals drawing fascinated glances throughout the room. One of them is Seven of Nine. Jean-Luc has been hoping for the opportunity to speak with her, but the former Borg has been flanked protectively all evening by the Doctor and the tattooed, taciturn first officer.

Perhaps, with Beverly distracting the Doctor and Kathryn introducing them … but when he looks back at Kathryn he changes his mind. She masks her expression quickly, but her gaze keeps straying back to the couple across the ballroom. They make a striking pair. One dark and broad, one slender and fair. Each wearing a mark on the left temple, both a badge and a brand.

He wonders which of them put that longing in her eyes, or if they both did.

Jean-Luc asks Kathryn to dance. They move together effortlessly; self-possession and muscle memory and Starfleet training combine, allowing him to focus completely on the arch of her neck, her slender waist in his hand, without missing a step. But beneath her polished exterior he senses she’s restless. She clings to him a fraction more closely than propriety dictates. Her colour is high, her breathing quickened.

Before he can open negotiations between them with diplomacy she asks bluntly, “What’s the situation with your CMO?”

“What do you mean?”

Kathryn gives him a deadpan glance.

“It’s complicated,” he concedes, then hazards, “much like whatever is between you and your first officer.”

Her expression is smooth. “We’re friends, Captain. Nothing more.”

“In that case, Captain …” he urges her closer with a hand slipping low on her back, “how much longer are you expected to work this room?”

Her reply, when it comes, is low and breathless. “It’s been a long time for me, Jean-Luc.”

“I’ll just see you to the transporter station, if you want.”

“No,” she says. “I don’t think that’s what I want at all.”

*

Seven years of near-celibacy have left Kathryn ravenous and raw and grasping. She takes him with ferocity, her fingers wrapped around his wrists, agony and lust warring in the twist of her hips. Her breath rasps in her throat. When she comes it’s not silently but with a pained, sobbing wail followed by a wracking squall of tears. He holds her against his chest, stroking her hair.

The storm passes quickly; she heaves a sigh, wipes her palms beneath her eyes, and sits up to smile at him.

“I’m starving,” she says. “Want something?”

Jean-Luc shakes his head. He feels wrung out, a hollow wreck on crumpled sheets, as though Kathryn has absorbed all of his energy, like a succubus. He wonders if she’d allowed herself to let go like that even once, out there in the Delta quadrant, and if anyone was there to hold her through it.

He watches her moving naked around the kitchen of her small, Starfleet-issued studio. She is messy and alive, leaning against the counter with her head tipped back, a drop of water escaping the rim of her glass to mingle with the perspiration on her neck.

She orders a platter of fruit and returns to the bed with it. Her white teeth pierce the flesh of a strawberry.

“You have no idea how much I missed these while I was out there,” she remarks, contemplating the fruit. “Sometimes I dreamed about them. Silly, the things that used to make me long for home.”

“And now you’re here. What will you do?”

“I assume you’ll have some say in that,” she says. “You’ll be on the board at my debriefing, won’t you?”

She’s not supposed to know that, but then, he’s not surprised at her deduction.

“I don’t know what I want to do,” she admits softly. “Thinking about it, while we were out there … it was too much, and when I allowed myself to hope ...”

“What did you hope for?” he asks, because he genuinely wants to know.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she says, her tone deliberately light as she leans in to kiss him.

*

“I hated her, you know.”

They sit at the kitchen table in the early hours of morning, Kathryn wrapped in a satin robe and sipping black coffee, Jean-Luc in a freshly replicated uniform.

“Yes, I imagine it was uncomfortable, coming face to face with –”

“My own mortality?” Kathryn gives him a wry smile. “Not that, so much. I hated what I’ll become. What I could become.” She slashes an impatient hand through the air. “Temporal mechanics.”

“I met a temporally displaced version of myself once,” Jean-Luc tells her. “He was out of phase … uncommunicative. His _Enterprise_ was on a path to destruction and he couldn’t change the course of its fate, and therefore ours.”

“What did you do?” she asks.

“I shot him to break the temporal loop.”

Her eyebrows rise. “That makes me feel better about sending my own double to her death.”

“Death is better than –” he stops himself.

“You can say it,” Kathryn says flatly. “Assimilation. I sent her off to be assimilated.”

Jean-Luc knows, because he’s been reading her mission logs since Project Pathfinder made it possible, that she and two of her crewmen were voluntarily assimilated so they could aid a Borg resistance cell. He cannot imagine walking into the belly of the beast and giving himself over to it the way she did.

He thinks about that older, harder Kathryn Janeway, and wonders what her life was like that she volunteered for that non-death twice.

“I still hear them sometimes,” Kathryn says softly.

He thinks about the queen’s voice in his mind – alien, seductive, narcotic – and the queen’s will blanketing his own, velvety and dark, like drowning. Like letting go.

Her hand covers his on the table, and when he looks at her he thinks, _she knows. She understands_.

And, _knowing, understanding_ , she would still willingly give herself up to the queen’s embrace. His gut clenches in visceral fear, and no small part of it is fear of this woman whose hand is so warm and so human in his own.

*

Perhaps that fear is what compels him to question her so censoriously at her debriefing that it’s almost an interrogation. Her old mentor, Owen Paris, scowls in his direction – “this isn’t a court martial, Picard,” – and even Alynna Nechayev raises an eyebrow at him. Kathryn, however, remains composed, her responses equable and perfectly professional, and in the end he has no choice but to clear her for duty.

She shakes his hand politely and even smiles and thanks him, and, chastened, he invites her somewhat clumsily to spend some of her leave at La Barre.  
  
“No thank you, Captain,” she reproves. “After seven years in exile, I think I need to be around the people I’ve missed.”

He accepts the rebuke, ducking his chin. “May you find everything you hope for, Captain.”

“Too late for that,” she says without self-pity.

He watches her walking away. Part of him is envious of her – there’s a certain freedom to losing everything several times over – but mostly he’s thankful that he doesn’t have to start all over again, like Kathryn does.

Jean-Luc turns in the direction of the transporter room. The _Enterprise_ is leaving orbit shortly on a milk run mission, and Beverly will be waiting for their dinner date.

He hopes he isn’t too late.


	3. Chapter 3

_Resurrection: I am dead_   
_from it—the attempt to live_   
_again._

  
**_USS Enterprise-E, orbiting Earth – 2379_ **

There’s a certain irony, though no surprise, in Kathryn Janeway sitting on his review panel.

She is far kinder to him than he was to her two years ago, but Jean-Luc is too shell-shocked to appreciate it. He can still barely utter Data’s name. Maybe his loss is fresher, cuts deeper.

Or maybe Kathryn just hid her pervading, visceral pain back then, better than he ever has.

The inquiry lasts barely two days, and at the end of it she rises and says “It is the finding of this review board that Captain Jean-Luc Picard consistently acted in the interests of the Federation while in Romulan space, and that he should be cleared from any suspicion of complicity or misconduct in the death of Lieutenant Commander Data,” and he stands, rigid and numb, feeling the weight of compassion in her gaze as the other admirals file out of the room.

Then she’s standing in front of him, close enough to feel the warmth of her skin and smell her hair. Her hand is on his chest. 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

She stretches up to press her lips to his cheek, and his arms go around her waist and he finds that he can’t let her go.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” he asks her, forcing the words out through the ache in his throat.

“Of course I will.” She cups his face in her hands. “Your place or mine?”

He doesn’t know where she’s living at the moment, but it doesn’t matter: cosy country estate, impeccably styled townhouse or sterile Starfleet apartment, none of it will feel like home, and he needs the comfort of the familiar right now.

“Mine, if that’s all right with you.”

He releases her before he taps his combadge, and moments later they materialise on the _Enterprise_.

*

It’s been two years since they went to bed together and before that it was close to a decade, but it’s effortless between them; it always has been. They find their rhythm easily and she responds keenly to his touch, her cry sharp as a knife when she climaxes. She leaves marks in his shoulders from her fingernails, and she squeezes him inside her, urging him breathlessly, _fuck me, yes please fuck me yes_. She makes him feel vigorous and young.

She curls into his chest afterwards with a contented sigh, and despite everything, Jean-Luc finds himself smiling.

“Why haven’t we ever tried to make a go of it?” he asks her.

“What?”

He’s already half-regretting his impulse, but Kathryn sits up and looks at him, pushing her hair impatiently out of her eyes.

“You mean, of us? You and me?” she asks. “What’s brought this on?”

Jean-Luc shrugs. “Thinking about the impermanence of life and love, I suppose, and wondering … we’ve known each other for twenty years, Kathryn. We’ve been friends for most of it, lovers off and on. Haven’t you thought about the possibility, even once or twice?”

“Well, of course,” she admits. “But our timing was always terrible, even if one of us had been willing to give up Starfleet.”

He raises his eyebrows. “I gave up Starfleet once. For the right reason I could be convinced to give it up again.”

Kathryn stares at him. “Are you really … You’re serious about this? But what about Dr Crusher?”

“She’s in my direct chain of command.”

A shadow crosses her face. “Yes, I can see how that could be a problem. But surely, if you want it badly enough –”

“Did you want it that badly, you and Captain Chakotay?” He should shut his mouth, but he wants to know her answer. “Or did you decide not to try?”

She’s quiet for a while, her lips pressed together.

“For eight years, we tried not to want it at all.” Her voice dips harshly. “Six months ago we met by chance on Proxima Station, had one too many whiskeys and almost ruined everything. He married Seven of Nine, you know, a few weeks later.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he is.

“At least they didn’t ask me to officiate the wedding,” she smiles without humour. “They’d have had no choice in the Delta quadrant.”

“Come here,” Jean-Luc says softly, and Kathryn lies back down with her head on his chest.

*

He’s enjoying her efforts at returning him to full hardness, but his recovery isn’t what it used to be.

“Your mind is not on the job,” Kathryn murmurs, resting her chin on his thigh and gazing up the length of his torso.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know if I can keep doing it,” he admits.

She snorts. “You’re not that old, Jean-Luc.”

“Not that,” he grins back. “I meant the _Enterprise_. My other job.”

Kathryn crawls up to straddle him, hands flat on his chest and head cocked to the side as she contemplates him. “You’d really give it up, then? Exploring, boldly going?”

“I’m not sure I have the stomach for it anymore,” he sighs.

“You could retire.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know,” she smirks, “join the diplomatic corps? Go back to archaeology, or write your memoirs, maybe?”

He taps her ass lightly in retaliation. “Actually, I’ve been thinking it might be time to join the admiralty.”

“You?” she laughs, but it fades when he doesn’t laugh too. “You’re serious,” she marvels. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

“One more mission,” he decides, “a three-month tour to the Kevratas system in the Beta quadrant. A medical errand of mercy. Then I’ll request a meeting with Admiral Nechayev to discuss my options.”

He’d expected her encouragement, but when she remains silent he looks at her and sees that her smile is sad.

“Some days, I wish I’d had the option to remain in command of _Voyager_ when we came home from the Delta,” she says softly. “Think carefully on it, Jean-Luc, because once you’ve given up that chair, nothing will ever be the same again.”

*

Kathryn sits at the breakfast table in a borrowed robe with the cuffs turned over twice, her face scrubbed and hair damp from a water shower. She has both hands curled around a mug of coffee. Her bare legs are crossed, and beneath the table Jean-Luc can see that her toenails are painted burgundy, like wine.

The door chimes, and Beverly walks in without waiting for permission. It’s their twice-weekly breakfast date. He has forgotten.

“Oh,” says Beverly, stopping. “Admiral, I’m sorry – Jean-Luc didn’t mention –”

Consternation flickers briefly across Kathryn’s face, chased away by her professional smile. “Good morning, Doctor,” she says. “I understand you and Captain Picard often breakfast together. I hope I’m not intruding.”

Both women raise eyebrows at him and Jean-Luc clears his throat uncomfortably. “Doctor, perhaps we could reschedule for tomorrow?”

“Of course,” Beverly says smoothly. “Excuse me, Admiral.”

Jean-Luc catches the slightest glint in her eye as Beverly turns to leave. When he looks back at Kathryn, she’s watching him with that curling half-smile.

“You could have invited her to stay.”

He doesn’t bother to respond to that.

“Well, I have a full day ahead, Admiral,” he says, standing and tugging at his uniform jacket.

The smile wavers from her face. “All right,” she says, lowering her cup to the table and rising slowly to her feet, “I suppose I’ll see you next time the _Enterprise_ is in the neighbourhood, Captain. Or maybe,” she pauses, “when you move into your office at HQ.”

She disappears into his bedroom. When she comes out ten minutes later she is uniformed and made-up, her burnished hair coiled at the nape of her neck.

“I’ll escort you to the transporter room.”

Kathryn nods, and they walk at arm’s length from each other through the corridors of his ship.

“I appreciate you making time for such an early meeting, Captain,” she says when they reach the transporter room, and even if the ensign at the control station isn’t fooled in the least, Jean-Luc appreciates her effort. He excuses the ensign, and when they’re alone he takes Kathryn’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, hoping she knows he means he’s sorry for more than just being abrupt with her.

“So am I,” she says gently.

He rests his forehead on hers and she tilts her head to kiss his cheek.

“You could try with Beverly,” she says, straightening and laying a hand on his chest. “Who knows? Maybe she’s just been waiting for you to want it enough.”

She steps up onto the transporter pad and Jean-Luc moves behind the controls.

“Goodbye, Kathryn,” he says as she shimmers into air.

Before he leaves the transporter room, he coms Beverly and asks her to meet him in Ten-Forward for a cup of coffee.


	4. Chapter 4

_I leave you: haloes and clothes._   
_I leave you violently._   
_Like the wail of an exile._

  
**_Château Picard, La Barre, France – 2385_ **

Kathryn Janeway materialises in the golden stone courtyard. Her face is lined with exhaustion and the July sunshine glints on new silver streaks in her hair. Jean-Luc walks out onto the front steps and looks at her in astonishment.

“You’re supposed to be in the Echia sector.”

“I was,” she grates. “But then I received a subspace packet telling me you’d handed in your resignation because Starfleet won’t divert resources to the Romulan evacuation effort.”

“If you’re here to recruit me back to the ranks, you’re wasting your time.”

“That’s not why I’m here.” Kathryn’s expression is tightly closed.

Laris hurries up from the cellar just then, scolding Jean-Luc for his lack of manners and guiding Kathryn inside. She brings tea and pours it out, her glance flickering between them, and then exits, leaving the drawing room door ajar behind her.

“Are you all right, Kathryn?” Jean-Luc asks when the silence stretches into dust.

She looks at him, seething. “Are you out of your fucking mind.”

“Kathryn …”

“You _quit_ ,” Kathryn accuses him. “You threw a tantrum and Bordson called your bluff, and now you’re hiding away in your precious vineyard, pretending millions of people aren’t about to die.”

Jean-Luc rests his cup on his saucer. It’s not that he resents her for reacting this way, but he admits privately that it’s probably the reason he didn’t tell her himself.

“It’s not like that,” he protests.

“Oh, really? Tell me what it’s like, then.”

“I played my last card,” he says. He rubs a hand across his eyes, suddenly weary. “I lost. There’s nothing more I can do, despite what Raffi seems to –”

“Raffi is the one who contacted me,” Kathryn interrupts. “She doesn’t seem to agree with you.”

“Raffi is young and idealistic.”

“For the record, I don’t agree with you either, and I’m neither young nor idealistic.” She softens her tone, pressing, “Have you really given up, Jean-Luc? Surely Laris and Zhaban have contacts –”

“No,” he cuts in. “There’s nothing they, or I, can do. Starfleet has made up its mind and I want no part of it.”

Kathryn sits back. “I hope your moral superiority lets you sleep at night, Jean-Luc.”

“What would you have me do, Kathryn?” he asks her, stung. “What are _you_ doing?”

“I’ve ordered the Beta Fleet to the Hobus sector,” she says. “Granted, a few _Intrepid_ -class and _Luna_ -class ships can’t evacuate many civilians, but I’m petitioning HQ to divert more resources to the rescue armada. If I can get Clancy on board –”

“They won’t listen,” Jean-Luc says harshly. “I played every hand, pulled in every favour. It was no use. Ever since the Mars attack they’ve been too frightened to –”

“Admiral.” Laris is standing in the open doorway, her face grave.

“What is it?” Jean-Luc asks her.

“Admiral Janeway,” Laris amends. “There’s an urgent transmission for you from Starfleet Command.”

*

She swallows the bourbon without flinching, but her fingers tremble on the glass and her face is the colour of milk.

“Tell me,” Jean-Luc invites.

Kathryn hunches over her drawn-up knees and he reflects that her uniform seems suddenly too big for her, as though she’s withered inside it. He knows the feeling.

“The reports are unclear,” she says. “All I know is that the Beta Fleet was attacked by an unknown force. Three out of five ships have been destroyed and one is missing with all hands.” She draws a shaky breath. “That would be _Voyager_.”

“Kathryn, I’m sorry.” He hesitates. “Chakotay?”

She shakes her head. “No word.”

“Will you be leaving immediately?”

“I’ve been ordered to stand down. They want me for questioning at HQ.”

“Maybe it’s an opportunity to force their hand on the evacuation fleet,” he says, trying to cheer her.

She just looks at him.

“Surely they can’t blame you for this.”

“Oh, can’t they? I’m the one who ordered the fleet deeper into Romulan territory.” She sets her glass on a low table and stands to pace. “I’m starting to believe you, Jean-Luc. I’ve known Kirsten Clancy since the academy and she just summoned me as if I were a wayward cadet. My head’s on the block, and perhaps rightly so.”

“You don’t really believe that.” A thought occurs to him. “It wasn’t Bordson who accepted my resignation, Kathryn, it was Clancy. If she’s making a play for the C in C job and thought I was in the way, perhaps she sees you as an obstacle too.”

“I don’t want the job,” she rasps. “I want to know who attacked my people. I want to evacuate the civilians in the supernova blast radius. I want –” her breath catches, “I want to find my people and bring them home.”

“How can I help?” he asks.

Kathryn starts to say something then stops, catching her lower lip between her teeth. She looks up at him.

“Get Laris in here,” she orders him. “There’s someone I need to visit without attracting Starfleet’s attention, and I suspect Laris can get me there.”

“Get you where?” asks Jean-Luc.

“An astrophysics research outpost located in the Qiris sector, where civilian scientists from the Federation and the Romulan Empire are studying the Hobus proto-supernova,” Kathryn replies. “I have a friend there who’ll do everything she can to help me find Ch- to find _Voyager_.”

*

It’s been made quite clear that he shouldn’t ask how Kathryn is getting to the Qiris sector, or whom she’ll be seeing when she gets there, or how she intends to search for _Voyager_. She declines his invitation to stay the night, and when he tries to take her in his arms she slips away.

“What would Beverly think?” she asks him, softening the rejection with a half-smile.

“Beverly and I aren’t together anymore,” he is forced to admit. “There’s no reason we can’t –”

“There is,” she stops him.

Realisation dawns. “Chakotay?”

“Yes.”

“I thought he married Seven of Nine.”

“Annika,” she corrects. “Marriages break down. Fortunately their friendship survived.”

“I’m happy for you, Kathryn.”

“Thank you,” she says, just as Laris appears in the doorway.

“Time to go, Admiral.”

Kathryn hugs him. “Be happy, Jean-Luc,” she says, and follows Laris out into the courtyard, into the soft velvet night.

He wonders if it will be the last time he ever sees her.

*

Two weeks later he is enjoying the slanted fingers of early sunset in the courtyard when Laris sets a tray on the low table beside him. On it are two thick-cut glasses and the bottle of bourbon he’d opened for Kathryn.

“What’s this for?”

Laris pours a generous amount into each glass. “She was successful.”

“Oh?” Jean-Luc waits with raised eyebrows while Laris swallows her liquor.

“I’m told that your admiral friend tracked down her missing ship. Unfortunately it was unsalvageable, but all hands are safely on their way back to Earth. Only the captain was injured. I hear that he’ll be reassigned after a short period of medical leave.”

“That’s good news,” Jean-Luc says. “What about Kathryn?”

“Your maverick friend has been declared absent without official leave.” Laris smiles into her glass. “She’s burnt her bridges, that one. I doubt we’ll see her again.”

“Hardly something to smile about.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Laris, standing. “I think we’ll all be better off with her right where she is now, doing what she does best.”

“What do you mean? Where is she?”

She laughs and leans over to kiss him on the cheek. “Best not to ask, Admiral. Just be grateful that there are people in the universe like Kathryn Janeway.”

“I’ve always been grateful for that,” he grumbles into his untouched bourbon as Laris walks away.


	5. Chapter 5

_Sunrise: unbreakable dawn._   
_I open your book._   
_It has no pages._

  
**_The Centaur Tavern, Proxima Centauri – 2390_ **

The novelty of beckoning a bartender and unashamedly ordering a Romulan ale has long worn off. These days, or so Laris tells him, all the kids are drinking Ferengi stardrifters. The ingredients have been hard to come by since the Federation rejected Ferenginar’s third application for membership.

Jean-Luc, who has developed an appreciation for tradition, orders the ale and hunches into the corner of his booth, letting his eyes slip out of focus. It’s his first trip off-world in three years, and he doesn’t remember space lag ever fatiguing him like this before.

Maybe he’s just getting old.

“Admiral Picard.”

So old and tired that he hasn’t even noticed the woman approaching his booth … but as she slides in opposite him and his eyes go wide in recognition, Jean-Luc hopes fervently that nobody else has noticed her either.

“Annika Hansen,” he whispers. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s Seven of Nine. I’ve gone back to my roots,” she says flippantly. “And I was in the neighbourhood.”

His eyebrows rise. “We’re nowhere near Romulan space.”

“ _Former_ Romulan space,” she corrects.

Jean-Luc presses his lips together, studying her. The last time he saw her in person was a decade ago at some Starfleet function. Back then she’d been immaculately groomed – posture straight, pale hair in a neat chignon, a fitted jumpsuit accentuating her slender figure – but the Seven of Nine in front of him is different. Her clothing is looser, crumpled, the colours drab, and she slouches in her seat. He wonders how much of that is disguise.

“I’ve heard rumours that you left Daystrom to join the Fenris Rangers,” he says. “Is it true?”

“Word gets around.”

“But why?” he asks. “They’re vigilantes. What could possibly make you want to join them?”

Seven’s face hardens. “Still living in a fantasy world, I see. Wake up and take a look around, Picard. The galaxy has changed since the good old days.”

“When were those good old days, exactly?” he retorts. “During the Dominion War, perhaps? The Borg invasion?”

“Point taken,” Seven concedes. “The short answer to your question is that I joined the Rangers to protect the people Starfleet abandoned in the not-so-Neutral Zone.”

“I take it there’s a longer answer.”

“There is, but let’s just say I have deeply personal reasons for doing what I do. Enough about me. I’m here to pass on a message.” She tilts her head. “And to ask a favour.”

“Go ahead.”

“Your housekeepers,” she says. “I’m told they helped you escape the Tal Shiar five years ago. They should know that there’s still a bounty on their heads, and if they want to live, they can never leave Earth.”

He nods; it’s disappointing, though not unexpected. “And the favour?”

Seven’s gaze flickers. “I’m looking for the truth about what happened to a friend of mine.”

“And you think I can help you with that?”

“Surely you still have some contacts in Starfleet.”

Jean-Luc starts to say _yes, of course_ , but when he starts a mental list of the Starfleet officers he could still call on for help, he realises that it’s depressingly short.

“Or maybe you can ask your Romulan friends,” Seven continues, apparently following his thought process.

“What can you tell me?”

She folds her hands on the table and looks down at them. “All I know is that he was on a secret assignment, commanding a vessel in the Beta quadrant. I don’t know the name of the ship. A few months ago I heard from a contact in the Tal Shiar that he was killed in action. I haven’t been able to find out any more than that.”

“Not much to go on,” Jean-Luc points out. “What was your friend’s name?”

“Chakotay.”

Jean-Luc’s fingers slacken on the glass of ale. He wonders how many more surprises the evening will bring.

“What about –” he swallows. “Have you heard from Kathryn? Where is she? Is she alive?”

Seven’s eyes gleam in genuine amusement. “Who do you think I work for?”

While he’s grappling with that, she drains her previously untouched whiskey and leans in, voice low.

“They were together for five years before Chakotay’s death. And no, I don’t believe his untimely demise had anything to do with their relationship. As far as I know, Starfleet had no idea they were seeing each other.”

“Was he passing information to the Rangers?” He waits for her answer, and when she stays silent, taps the table impatiently. “I can’t help you if I don’t have all the facts, Seven.”

“Of course he was,” she says. “Join forces with a band of noble vigilantes from his position within Starfleet? He and Kathryn appreciated the irony.”

She rises, tossing a data chip onto the scarred wooden table.

“This is everything I know about Chakotay’s service record since _Voyager_ rescued me in the Delta quadrant. Don’t try to contact me – I’ll be in touch. And, Picard …”

“Yes?”

“I repay my favours.”

*

It’s late, and his second glass of Romulan ale sits warm and undrunk on the table before him. Jean-Luc pockets the data chip and gets to his feet. His bones creak more than they used to, these days, and he wants his bed.

He makes his way through the corridors of the space station and taps the entry code that will admit him to quarters.

Inside, Beverly looks up from the book on her lap and smiles at him. She has changed out of uniform into silk pyjamas, and there’s a soft woollen shawl around her shoulders.

“Did you enjoy your drink?”

“It was fine,” he tells her, shucking his jacket and slinging it across a chair. “I think I’ll turn in.”

“Me too; I have an early lecture tomorrow.” She closes her book, rising from the armchair she’s curled into. “What will you do with yourself all day?”

He shrugs. “I’ll amuse myself somehow. There’s a display of Manraloth artefacts in quantum stasis on Level 47, I’m told. It’s been more than thirty years since I encountered one.”

“Oh yes – on your first attempt to retire from Starfleet.”

 _More than thirty years_ , he thinks, marvelling that it seems like yesterday. He remembers the titian-haired lieutenant who’d moved too close to the quantum field protecting the artefact, and the static that had sizzled around her. How he’d felt, later, as though she was transmitting that static charge to him everywhere their skin touched.

Beverly comes over and rests her arms around his shoulders. “I still don’t think retirement suits you, you know, Jean-Luc.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think I’ve had plenty of excitement for one lifetime.”

“I never thought I’d hear you say such a thing.”

“Truth be told, I’m looking forward to getting back to my vineyard.”

Beverly sighs and gives her head a small shake. “Aren’t you lonely, living all the way out there in the country? Don’t you miss the stars?”

“Not at all. I’ve developed a taste for the simple life, and I have Zhaban and Laris to keep me company.” Jean-Luc turns them both in the direction of the bedroom, an arm around her waist. “Besides, I’ve been thinking of getting a dog.”

They slide into bed together and Beverly calls for lights out.

“Doctor,” Jean-Luc says into the quiet dark.

“So formal,” she answers with a laugh, “Admiral.”

“If I were to look into the mysterious death of a former colleague, would you be prepared to misuse your access to the Starfleet medical database to assist me?”

There’s a certain smugness to her tone when she responds. “I knew you couldn’t really give up the excitement, Jean-Luc.”

“Will you help?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” he murmurs, and revels in the rare opportunity to hold her as they drift into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> The title and the quotes at the beginning of each section are from [Semicolons](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/150288/semicolons) by Zubair Ahmed.


End file.
